Cindy MacDougall
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Mar 20/00) - Jack Kruger sounds exasperated as he explains how some people have become lost on the blue expanse of Great Slave Lake.

"Some people are just too stupid," he says with a sigh. "When people try to go 50 miles on 10 miles of gas, or use a road map instead of a marine chart..."

Kruger runs Hay River's professional and volunteer search and rescue groups. As the district director of the Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary and a driving force behind Hay River Search and Rescue, Kruger has fished quite a few people out of the lake in summer or found them with their broken-down snowmobiles in winter.

He says summer is the busy search time in Hay River, all because of unprepared pleasure boaters.

"We had 15 searches last summer. It doesn't seem like a lot compared to Toronto or Vancouver, but this is a very different area," he says. "Here, it's a complete search, not just a rescue."

Winter and summer searches are very different affairs, Kruger says. It's not just the weather.

"In the winter, it's usually a local with a broken down snowmobile," he said. "In the summer, we get a lot of lost tourists."

He's found a few bodies along the way, as well.

"Last year there was a guy who died in the Delta," he says, quietly. "We find most people alive."

Splitting up the task

Search and rescue in the North can be a confusing, expensive and difficult job.

Responsibility for searches is divided four ways. The Canadian Forces take care of air search and rescue. The volunteers of the Civil Air Search and Rescue Association (CASARA) help when contacted.

The RCMP does ground searches, and often calling upon local search and rescue volunteers. On the water, the RCMP and the Coast Guard Auxiliary work together.

Finally, the GNWT -- through the Emergency Measures Organization -- helps with land searches and general emergencies.

Capt. John Houd worked as a navigator on several military air searches in the North.

His job was to watch the fuel supply of the Hercules aircraft and keep the massive plane on its search grid.

"We don't go to a place and circle a few times and then decide what to do," Houd says. "I keep the plane in straight lines a half a mile apart."

He said searching in the North can be a challenge.

"Weather is our first factor, especially in winter," he says. "If a plane crashes in -40 C, survivors are looking to be rescued very, very quickly."

His last Northern search was for a man on a camping trip who broke a leg.

"He had a personal locator beacon," Houd says. "It sends a message to a satellite, which is received by a rescue co-ordination centre (in Vancouver, Trenton or Halifax.)"

The beacon will give a fair idea, within a 50-mile radius, where the lost or hurt person is stranded.

Helping the pros

When the pros need a hand, volunteers in the North have been eager to help. In air searches, CASARA volunteers are contacted.

Helicopter pilot Frank O'Connor says the private pilots often spot what the military misses, because there are so many small craft.

"Maybe our eyesight is just better," he jokes.

Brent Rausch, CASARA'S training officer for the NWT, says teamwork often finds a target that seemed hopeless.

"We are really valuable because we're probably closer to where they want to search," he says. "They wouldn't have to come from Winnipeg or Trenton. They could just call us.

The Coast Guard Auxiliary is staffed by volunteers as well.

A growing group of search and rescue help is the "ground pounders," or ground search volunteers.

Hay River and Yellowknife both have dozens of volunteers, eager to help on snowmobile or foot.

Norm Dei, president of Yellowknife Search and Rescue, says he enjoys the training and knowing he can help in an emergency.

"It's something that needed to be done," he says. "It's a way of paying back the community."

The Yellowknife and Hay River search and rescuers recently did their winter training to learn how to survive on the land during a search.

"When you're out on a search, the first thing you take care of is yourself," Dei says.

An expensive undertaking

Whether it be a Coast Guard vessel, a Hercules or a ground search, finding the lost is expensive.

Sending out an air rescue crew costs thousands of dollars in fuel, wages and time.

When CASARA volunteers get called in, they have to be paid for fuel and time as well, according to Rausch.

Meanwhile, search and rescue in Yellowknife has received funding from Municipal and Community Affairs as well as business sponsors.

Kruger says he doesn't know how much land and water searches cost, but it's not cheap.

"Last summer, a fisherman got lost out near Slavey Point," he says. "We were out a day with a plane, a Guardian, 30-foot vessel and a search boat.

"It is one hell of a pricey undertaking."

- With files from Glen Korstrom